Ahead of the Curve
by blessthefate
Summary: Harper Evans lived an average and unplanned life. But her average life will turn to chaos when she meets the Joker.
1. Prologue

_Harper Evans lived an average and unplanned life. _

_She had recently graduated from college with degrees in computer science and programming, and a random degree in philosophy. _

_Much to her parents dismay, instead of living and getting a stable career in Seattle, she packed up and moved to the most dangerous place in the US: Gotham City. _

_In Gotham, Harper decided not to put her college degrees to use and instead, chose to work random jobs that required no skill. This ranged anywhere from working at a hunting equipment store (she got fired because she accidentally fire a crossbow at the manager) to a waitress at a diner (only lasted about a week because Harper's anger and impatience got the best of her). _

_It was working at all of these random places that caused Harper to meet him_. 

The self proclaimed "Agent of Chaos". 

The "Clown Prince of Crime". 

The Joker. 


	2. Neutron Bomb

Harper Evans stood in front of her bedroom closet, searching for something to wear that didn't look like it belonged to a punk teenager.

Band tee. Band tee. Band tee. Plain black shirt. Band tee. Ripped jeans. Ripped jeans. Another band tee. Oh look! A pair of not-ripped jeans!

Harper sighed exasperatedly and flopped down on her unmade bed. At the moment, it only had a pillow and a Scooby Doo blanket on it. Harper was too lazy to put sheets on, or even buy them for that matter. She needed her money for more important things. Like food. Or maybe some more mature looking clothes.

Harper gave a small laugh as she sat up on her elbows and gazed at her open closet.

Today she was planning on going down to the Gotham Employment Agency to see if she could get a job. She had quit working at the movie theater couple days ago when some dumb ass started yelling at her because she didn't butter his popcorn correctly. She had then thrown the bucket of popcorn at him and yelled, "Go butter this you fucking bastard!", promptly flipping him the bird after. Needless to say, if she hadn't quit she probably would have been fired soon enough.

But today she was hoping for something different. She was sick of working with stupid teenagers and wanted something a little more mature. Something that also payed higher than minimum wage.

Groaning, Harper pushed herself up off from the bed stood in front of her closet, yet again. With her brows furrowed, she dug way in the back of her closet, hoping to find something wearable. And lo and behold! Success!

Smiling widely, she pulled out a white button up shirt. Harper held it out in front of her and inspected it closely. When did she buy this?

She noticed a name tag on the collar of the shirt. Harper pulled it off and looked at it. It was dark blue and had 'Harper' written on it in white sticker letters.

Harper bit her lip in thought. Seriously, where did the shirt come from?

Harper noticed a little book on the back of the name tag. Ahhh, that was it . It was from a bookstore that she had previously worked at a few months ago.

Chuckling, Harper unpinned the name tag and tossed it out the open window, where it clattered to the ground three floors down.

"I don't think they'll be missing that..."

Harper turned back to her closet and grabbed a pair of jeans and her worn black converse. Converse went good with anything. She proceeded to head to the bathroom, shedding her pajama shorts and tank top along the way.

After getting dressed, Harper stared into the mirror above her sink, frowning. She always thought she looked like a Raggedy Ann doll. Her stubborn red locks always waved out no matter how much hairspray she used and no amount of concealer in the world could cover up the freckles God have given her.

Harper sighed and applied her minimal amount of make-up. When she was done, she walked over to her kitchen counter and grabbed her wallet, cell phone, resume copies, keys, inhaler, and pocket knife.

People could never be too careful in a city like Gotham. That was another reason she never carried a purse around. Not only were they annoying to carry, but muggers liked to take them. Harper figured that if she didn't have a purse hanging off her shoulder she would be a tad bit safer than other people with purses. It's also pretty damn troublesome to whip out a pocket knife if you have to search for it in a purse.

Switching off the lights, she walked out the door, making sure to lock it behind her.

Half an hour later Harper walked through the doors of the Employment Agency. She looked around and spotted the front desk. She walked up to it a smiled at the woman that was working behind it.

"May I help you?"

"Yeah. Um." Harper scratched the back of her head. "I'm looking for a job?"

The women started going through a stack of papers. "Any specific job your looking for?"

Harper thought for a second. "Anything that's above minimum wage."

The woman made a "mmhmm" sound and continued rummaging through papers. After a few minutes of Harper patiently waiting, she finally stopped going through her endless amount of papers and turned towards Harper.

"Okay. It seems that there's only a couple choices for you." She spread out the papers in front of Harper and pointed to one. "This one is for a retail worker at Macy's and," she pointed to the opposite one, "This one is for a bank teller at Gotham National Bank."

"I'll take bank teller for 200." Harper joked. The women didn't even crack a smile. Where was the sense of humor in people?

"Okay." The woman handed her a form and a pen. "Please fill out the application."

Harper thanked her and sat down in the waiting area. She clicked her pen a number of times before filling it out. When she was done, she handed it back to the woman at the front desk.

"Do you have a copy of your resume with you?"

"Yeah, I do." Harper took a piece of paper out of her back pocket and flattened it on the counter. "Here you go." She said cheerfully, hoping that her happy attitude would take away from the wrinkled paper.

"I'll send this to the bank and if you get called back that means they are interested."

"Thanks." Harper said.

"Have a nice day." The woman called from back by the desk.

Harper gave a small wave over her shoulder. "You too."

When she exited the building she was nearly blinded by the sunlight. "Ahhh!" Harper held her hand up to shield her eyes. "The light! It burns." A few people walking by gave her odd looks. Harper countered them by sticking her tongue out. "Keep being nosy, you morons."

Harper was still glaring when her stomach growled. She took out her phone and looked at the time. Noon. No wonder she was so hungry. She turned on her heel and headed to a Starbucks. Who needed actual food when you could eat delicious muffins and cookies?

Harper was in the middle of her double chocolate chunk muffin when her cell phone singing the Star Wars theme song. Harper picked up her phone and looked at the caller ID.

_Unknown caller_.

She pressed the answer button. "Hello?"

"Hello. Miss Evans?" a feminine voice said.

"Yes? Who is this?"

"This is Mrs. Williams, from Gotham National Bank. I'm calling to let you know that we are interested in hiring you for the vacant bank teller position. When is the soonest you can come in for an interview?"

Wow. That lady at the Employment Agency was a speedy little bugger.

Harper paused before answering. "I can be there in 20 minutes. Is that okay?"

"Perfect. I'll see you soon Miss Evans."

"Bye." Harper hung up the phone. Geez, that was fast. She dumped the rest of her muffin and coffee in the trash bin and hailed a cab.

As predicted, Harper arrived at the bank with a few extra minutes to spare. She tossed a few bills at the ranky cab driver and went through the bank doors. There were a lot of people at the bank. Not a big surprise. It was a bank after all. She found the front desk and walked up to it.

"Hi. I'm Harper Evans. I'm here for an interview?"

The receptionist looked up and smiled. "Miss Evans. I'm Mrs. Williams. Pleasure to meet you."

Harper shook her hand. "Nice to meet you too."

Boy, was she a looker (note the sarcasm). Her grey hair was piled into a beehive looking thing. Her pink lipstick was stuck on her teeth and her matching pink glasses were perched on the end of her crooked nose.

"Please go into that office to the right." the receptionist motioned with her hand.

Harper smiled and went where she was directed to go. She timidly knocked on the glass door. The whole office was glass... What was the point of that?

"Please come in." came a male voice. Harper walked into the ridiculous glass office. "Ahhh. Miss Evans. I'm Mr. Rossi, the bank manager. " An average sized man who looked to be in his 40's was sitting behind his desk. "Please take a seat."

Harper plopped down on a chair seated in front of the desk. Here goes the interview...

"You have one of the longest resumes I've ever seen." He pulled out some papers that Harper guessed was her resume and application.

"I like new experiences." Harper stated with a smile.

Mr. Rossi chuckled. "I see that. I also see that you have a degree in computer programming and computer science?"

"And philosophy." Harper pointed out.

"Yes..." he shuffled some papers. "But what experience do you have with banks?"

Harper pursed her lips. "To be honest, none. But I took a lot of advanced math classes in high school in college and I can learn quickly." Harper had her fingers crossed next to her thigh and hoped that her answer was good enough.

"Well..." Mr. Rossi started. "Under normal circumstances I would hire someone with more experience, however..." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "As you know Gotham is a very dangerous city and banks are constantly being robbed. Many of the bank tellers quit out of fear of being injured or killed during a heist. Seeing as how there hasn't been any applicants in a while, I think hiring you would be beneficial."

Mr. Rossi stood up and extended a hand towards Harper. Also standing up, Harper gave his hand a firm handshake. "Welcome to the staff Miss Evans." he said with a polite smile.

"Thank you so much!" Harper said while grinning.

"Please talk to the receptionist out front. She'll help get everything set up for you and show you what to do."

Harper was very excited. She had finally gotten a good job! No doubt she would get bored with this though. But for now, she was content with cashing people's checks and counting money


	3. Suitcase Bomb

Harper sighed dejectedly and propped her head up on her palm. Today was a boring day. Actually, the entire past three weeks had been boring ones. Harper had no idea working as a bank teller could be so tedious.

She pulled at her uniform uncomfortably. Damn blouse. It seriously had to be made from bark or something because there was no fabric on Earth that was as scratchy as her uniform shirt.

A person approached her to cash a check and Harper put on her "most important part of her uniform; her smile." Or at least that's what the lady that trained her had said…

Harper quickly counted and handed the man's money over and he left just as fast. Seeing the no other person was approaching her desk, she resumed her previous bored position.

It was about time she quit. Being a bank teller was just _sooo_ boring. Sure, Harper got paid decent. She had just bought new clothes, a fish, and proper groceries that didn't consist of Tasty Cakes and Moon Pies. But every single person that worked at the bank was too serious and never got Harper's jokes so she had just stopped talking to them after the first few days.

Yeah, it was time to move onto another job.

No sooner had Harper made her decision when gunshots sounded in the air. She looked up from her desk and saw three men dressed in suits and clown masks run into the lobby. Harper inwardly smiled. It was about time something interesting happened. As long as nothing happened to her it should be a good show.

"Alright everybody, hands up! Heads down!" the first clown yelled. He and a second clown ran up the lobby while the third stayed behind and terrorized a security guard. "I said hand up, heads down!"

The second clown stopped and began rummaging through a bag and the first continued going up the lobby until he stopped at a desk. _Harper'_s desk.

Harper's stared at the gun the clown was pointing at her nervously. Of fucking course. Of _all _the desks this dude could stop at he stopped and hers. "Let's go babe!" He grabbed her collar and puller her up to face him. "I'm making a withdrawal here!"

Harper's breath rushed out of her and she suddenly felt dizzy. Now was **not **time for an asthma attack. She took a deep breath and glared at the clown.

"I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to leave your attitude at the door because-"

Harper was cut off by the clown forcefully pulling her the rest of the way over the desk and shoving her down on the tiled floor. Her elbow hit the floor painfully and she bit her lip to keep from mouthing off or complaining about poor treatment.

The clown bent down over her and shoved his gun in her face. "Because what?" he hissed.

Harper's hazel eyes blinked up at him. If she were to do the smart thing she should just say "Nothing." rather then answer him with a snarky comment that would surely result in her getting hurt or even shot. But Harper, never one for playing things safe, choose the snarky comment.

"Because I can't help people with sticks up their asses."

The clown's barely visible eyes flared up with anger and he gave a fierce snarl. Raising his right hand, he swung furiously and slapped Harper on the side of her face.

Her head rolled to the side, her face radiating with pain. She reached up and gently touched her lip. Her fingertips came away stained red with blood.

_The dick! He just split her lip!_

She glared back up at the clown only to find that he had moved to the next bank teller and was currently harassing her and all of the other civilians cowering in that area. Harper scoffed and attempted to wipe up her lip with her uniform sleeve. She was still feeling slightly light-headed, but she didn't worry about it. It was probably just from loosing a little blood or something lame like that.

The clown that punched her continued his crowd control and yelling. "Obviously we don't want you to do anything with your hands other than holding on for dear life!"

Down the lobby, closer to the doors, the third clown clobbered the security guard on the back and also began yelling. "On the ground! Stay on the ground!" He pointed his gun wildly around the room.

Harper rolled her eyes. If anyone were to shoot themselves on accident, it would probably be that guy.

Suddenly, the glass office belonging to Mr. Rossi shattered and the clown fell down. Looks like he would never get the chance to shoot himself seeing as Mr. Rossi had just done it for him.

The other two clowns quickly got on the ground and hid behind the desks in the middle of the lobby. Mr. Rossi began walking toward them and shot at the second one scrambled forward to hide behind the next desk.

Great. Knowing Harper's luck, the clown would crawl right past her and Mr. Rossi would accidentally blow her head off.

"Hey!" Mr. Rossi yelled after shooting again. The second clown made it unharmed behind the last desk and joined the first clown. And, as Harper predicted, they were a few feet away from where she sat on the ground.

_Bang _

Mr. Rossi fired another bullet. "Do you have any idea who you're stealing from? You and your friends are dead!"

"He's out, right?" Harper heard the first clown ask his fellow bank robber. The second clown must've said yes because a couple seconds after the first clown popped up from his hiding spot.

Unfortunately for him, the second clown miscounted (on accident or on purpose, she wasn't sure.) and Mr. Rossi shot the clown in the arm. He cried out and stumbled to the floor. Mr. Rossi tried cocking his gun but the rest were blanks. The second clown bolted up and shot Mr. Rossi in his moment of weakness.

"Where did you learn to count?" the first clown asked angrily.

'What a shame,' Harper thought. She was hoping he was dead.

The first clown left the lobby and went down some stairs that Harper knew led to the vault. The second clown, now left alone, lazily walked around the lobby. He reached the end of the lobby, turned around, and began walking Harper's way.

Harper was, once again, struggling to get in a breath making her previous light-headedness worse. She fumbled in her pocket for her inhaler but stopped short when she saw that the clown was standing right in front of her, staring at her with his head cocked to the side and his gun slightly pointed at her.

"Uhhh… It's not…. a phone." she managed to choke out. She nervously pulled her inhaler from her pocket and quickly took a couple breaths of the prescribed air.

_Ah, sweet relief._

The first clown banged through the stairwell doors and dragged up at least five duffel bags of what Harper presumed was money. How he managed to do that, she had no clue. He must be seriously ripped.

"That's a lot of money. If this Joker guy was so smart he woulda had us bring a bigger car."

The second clown helped him pile the bags. As he turned his back to reach for a bag the first clown cocked his gun.

"I'm bettin' the Joker told you to kill me as soon as we loaded the cash."

So the Joker was behind this heist. Harper couldn't say she was surprised. This was a mob bank after all and the Joker was the best, supposedly. She didn't know much about him other than what was on the news. But convincing the fellow bank robbers to kill each other off did seem accurate with how the news channels depicted him.

The second clown sighed and checked his watch. "No, no, no. I kill the bus driver." He took a step to the side and the first clown matched it.

"Bus driver?"

Another step.

"What bus driver?"

Another step.

A large yellow school bus crashed through the bank walls and hit the first clown while the second clown merely side-stepped it. Harper was about to laugh but caught herself.

Yet _another_ clown hopped out of the bus. "School's out. Time to go." He saw the dead clown body and chuckled. "That guy's not getting up, is he?" The two clowns began loading the money in the bus. When the last bag in that pile was loaded the bus clown started talking again. "Hey, what happened to the rest of the guys?"

Without sparing him a last glance the second clown shot him and casually walked down the lobby to retrieve the last two bags of money. He tossed them into the bus and was about to climb in himself, but a voice stopped him. Mr. Rossi's voice.

Harper was honestly surprised. Man, that guy was feisty. He got shot, like, five times.

"You think you're smart, huh? The guy who hired you, well, he'll just do the same to you."

The clown began walking back to Mr. Rossi.

" Criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor, respect." He pushed out a chuckle. "Look at you. What do you believe in!"

The clown crouched down and shoved something in Mr. Rossi's mouth.

"I believe that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you…" He took of his mask and Harper stifled a gasp. "Stranger."

It was the Joker! _**The**_ Joker. The _**Joker**_!

It didn't matter how it was said or what words were emphasized. With his messy white face paint, coal black eyes, greasy green hair, and a red garish smile he was more than enough to strike fear into the hearts of every person in Gotham and even make the toughest bar brutes piss themselves.

He smiled that garish smile of his and nonchalantly strolled back to the bus. He tossed his gun and mask into the back and glanced over at Harper. Giving her a quick grin, he hopped into the bus and drove away.

Nobody in the bank moved for a few seconds. In fact, Harper was probably the first one to move. She pushed herself up off the floor and walked over to Mr. Rossi. Unfortunately, he was unconscious. Frowning, Harper glanced around and spotted the assistant manager, Mr. Todd. She walked over to him while unpinning her nametag and taking off her blazer.

"Mr. Todd, I think now would be a good time to tell you that I quit." She tossed him the nametag and blazer and strode out of the bank.

Instead of using the door like any normal person would have done, she walked through the gaping hole in the bank wall and into the streets of Gotham.

* * *

Okayyyy. This is the second chapter. :)

Reviews are much appreciated.

-Bee

P.S. I was planning to start out the story during TDK and continue to the end of the movie where I'll start making up crimes. :D I'm excited.


End file.
